Education in UNITA-Claimed Territory

By the mid-1980s, UNITA had gained control over a large part of
Angola's southeast and claimed to have gained the allegiance of more
than 1 million Angolans. As an integral part of his strategy to win over
the hearts and minds of the populations in the occupied area, UNITA
leader Jonas Savimbi established a state within a state, complete with a
system of schools and hospitals to meet the needs of the local
populations. The town of Jamba, UNITA's stronghold in southern Cuando
Cubango Province, had a population of between 10,000 and 15,000, all of
whom claimed loyalty to UNITA and Savimbi.

Although much of the information released by UNITA was
propagandistic, it provided a rough outline of the educational situation
in UNITA areas. UNITA claimed that its complex system consisted of
nearly 1,000 schools, in which almost 5,000 teachers taught more than
200,000 children. A Portuguese reporter who visited UNITA-claimed
territory in late 1987 reported that the UNITA education system
consisted of two years of kindergarten, four years of primary school,
and seven years of high school. Upon completion of high school, the
brightest students were given scholarships to study at universities in
Britain, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Portugal, and the United States. Others
attended middlelevel technical courses in agriculture, nursing, primary
school teaching, and typing in Jamba's Polytechnical Institute. UNITA's
academic organization closely resembled that of Portugal, with Latin an
important part of the curriculum.

Another Portuguese source reported in mid-1988 that there were
ninety-eight Angolan scholarship students studying in Portugal under
UNITA sponsorship. Because Portuguese institutions did not recognize the
courses taught in Jamba, UNITA-educated students were required to take
the examinations from the fourth class level up to university entrance
examinations, losing two or three years of their UNITA education in the
process. In other European countries, however, UNITA-sponsored students
took only the examinations required for admission to the education level
for which they wanted to enroll. Nevertheless, UNITA preferred to send
its students to Portugal because of the common language. UNITA-sponsored
students generally studied agronomy, engineering, and medicine.